Modular Music

Austin Cairns, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, has been making music under the moniker R Beny for some time now. You probably have seen his videos around, as he is also an active youtuber. His name gets mentioned surprisingly often when talking about modulars and ambient music and been inspiring many people to follow a similar [...]

We’re back! It’s been quite a while since our last post, but you know… life happens. For all of you who still visit this place from time to time: thanks a lot! You owned yourself our heartfelt gratitude! For everybody else: welcome to Horizontalpitch! The last years have been quite a bit of a journey for all of us here (both [...]

Cover photo by Ian Wallman If you’ve never heard about Scanner then you’ve probably been spending the last 20 years on the un-illuminated side of a far away planet listening to … well … basically nothing. Calling him prolific and multi-talented is almost an understatement. Since the beginning of his career he’s released [...]

<a href=”http://jericho2k.bandcamp.com/album/modular-diary-2″>Modular Diary by Jericho</a> Horizontalpitch: First of all, tell us a little bit about Jericho. What is Jericho and how long have you been active with this moniker? Jericho: My real name is Sebastian Steininger. I’m from Nuremberg, southern Germany. [...]

#INSTANTBONER are Joe Steyer and Matthias Millhoff, two musicians and producers from Berlin, Kreuzberg. They believe that modular systems and improvised electronic music are a perfect fit for the dance floor. The duo works with a combination of modular synth (for melody, basslines, drones and vocals; this is Matthias’ part) and a computer-based drum machine (Joe’s part) and prefers to create their music live on stage than in the protected context of the studio.

On the 1st of May 2015 we had our first official show in Berlin. In the following year we worked a lot on our setup and tried to make it as flexible as possible but also establish a significant sound within this flexibility. We were never trying to work on tracks in the studio, we decided from the beginning that we want to be a real live act, create everything on stage, with the pressure to deliver something to the people. We tried to play as much as possible, mainly around Germany. This year we played again on the 1st of May at the same spot and this time it was streamed by Be-At TV [ed. link is below]. It’s really fun for us to play a set, the vibe and the venue influences us from set to set and we try to create something special every time.

Their video Instantmotion was born as a way to explain what they do in their live shows.

[…] we got many questions about what we actually do with all these knobs, lights and cables. To give some answers we put together a short video which we believe speaks for itself.

For those who are interested in knowing the technical specifics behind this video:

[…] The sound you experience is actually the simple patch you see in the video. Only the Hexinverter Mutant Bassdrum is not visible but is triggered by the very first cable plugged into Pamelas Workout. The hihat is a noise from the FMVDO with MakeNoise Maths envelope 2, the bassline is played by the Doepfer Dark Time into Verbos Complex Oscillator and Manhattan Analog SVVCF with the TipTop Z4000 Envelope. The Pad is the mighty OP-1 shaped by Maths envelope 1. Modulation of bassline and hihat are coming from the QuadLFO. The Reverb is Z-DSP with the Valhalla-Card and is also modulated by the QuadLFO. And finally the Mixer/VCA is the ADDAC Quintet Mixing Console.

#INSTANTBONER are Joe Steyer and Matthias Millhoff, two musicians and producers from Berlin, Kreuzberg. They believe that modular systems and improvised electronic music are a perfect fit for the dance floor. The duo works with a combination of modular synth (for melody, basslines, drones and vocals; this is Matthias’ part) and a [...]

Horizontal Pitch: Who is Gattobus? Gattobus: My real name is Gianni Proietti. I was looking for an original user name when I registered my Youtube account, years ago, and because of my love for Miyazaki’s movies, I chose the Italian translation for “neko-basu” that is gattobus. I started making videos just for fun, every night after [...]

Solitary Pleasures by Rupert Lally Sometimes articles create a sort of unplanned and unexpected narrative. This is certainly the case with the latest series of Chosen Waves. Some time ago I posted about Ruper Lally’s ambient-imbued album Day One. In the interview I asked him about his opinion on the current trend of making [...]

You probably heard the name Moritz Scharf already. If not, you most certainly heard about Endorphin.es, the makers of the Futrhrrrr Generator, the Shuttle Control and the Terminal. Moritz is one of the two guys who run Endorphin.es, but he’s also a prolific and talented musician. It’s not a rare thing to find that somebody [...]

Nedemo by Gohan Tapes Gohantapes is a Japanese Tape-based music label and “collaboration enabling collective” (as they state on their website). Their second release Nedemo is described as: […] the year long collaboration of two British guys who live at opposite ends of Japan. Ally Mobbs, a beat making finger wizard based in [...]

Day One by Rupert Lally Rupert Lally is a British musician, who lives in Switzerland. He’s been around for quite a while producing several albums solo and in collaboration with Norway-based Espen J.Jörgensen. His new album Day One was released on Bandcamp on 15.01.2016, and will be featured in a CiTR broadcast on 17.01.2016, at [...]